Philip enjoys telling a story to illustrate his art expertise. When he was first married to the princess, he was going through the labyrinth of cellars and dungeons at Windsor Castle when he came across a cellar room that obviously hadn’t been investigated for years. On the walls were two oil paintings covered in dirt, but with a distinguished familiarity. When he got them out into the daylight and dusted them down, he excitedly realised he had some original Stubbs in his possession. To this day, they hang in his study at Windsor, a reminder that if it hadn’t been for his artistic eye, they might never have been discovered and for ever forgotten.

Having a keen eye for art, Prince Philip has also championed improving design in the commercial world. From its inception in 1959, the Prince Philip Designers Prize has celebrated how designers improve daily life by solving problems and turning ideas into commercial reality. Winners have included everything from household products to buildings and great feats of engineering. Having headed up the judging panel and presented the prize since its inception, in 2011 Philip stepped down from the prize as he reduced his royal responsibilities in his ninetieth year.

Prince Philip’s high regard for pleasing design is equalled by his admiration for engineers. He has always said they performed such an essential function that it was hard to imagine life without them. He also claimed engineers held the key to the future of humanity and its ability to continue to thrive on the planet. As senior fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, he has criticised the lack of a Nobel Prize for engineering. The Prince Philip Medal for Engineering is awarded biennially to an engineer of any nationality who has made an exceptional contribution to engineering.

The Queen, too, has given her name to a prize for engineers. In 2011, the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering was set up to reward and celebrate the engineers responsible for a groundbreaking innovation in engineering that has been of global benefit to humanity, and the generous £1 million prize is awarded every two years.

Prince Philip gave one of his most recent interviews to Radio 4 to talk about the prize he had set up and about the merits of British engineering with former BP executive Lord Browne, who was guest editor on the programme. ‘The human population of the world is growing and it’s got to be accommodated somehow or other,’ he said, adding: ‘It’s going to be engineers who are going to decide’ how to do this without resorting to destroying the delicate balance of nature. To emphasise the point, he commented: ‘Everything that wasn’t invented by God was invented by an engineer.’

Chapter 13

FROM BANQUETS TO TEA AT THE PALACE